View Content #19061

From http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-1108.html

Expressions of interest are invited for contributions to a special issue of Studies in African Linguistics on conditional constructions in African languages. Contributions relating to under-documented and under-described languages are particularly welcome.

There is an extensive literature on conditionals both in linguistics and in philosophy, but most research is based on English or the better-known European languages. Conditionals in other languages are a neglected area of study. Although many descriptive grammars describe the morphological and syntactic forms of conditional constructions, the range of functions associated with such expressions is often inadequately described. For this reason, contributions should pay special attention to the functions as well as the forms of conditional constructions.

Analyses of English conditional constructions are not necessarily appropriate to other languages, and so contributions should describe phenomena in light of the structures and functions that are relevant to each language, rather than in relation to translation equivalents in English. Likewise, data should be drawn from participant observation and original texts rather than from translated or constructed examples.

Please send expressions of interest to the guest editor, Steve Nicolle (steve_nicolle@sil.org) stating:
- Your name and email address
- The name of the language or languages to be described, including the country or countries where spoken and the ISO code (see http://www.ethnologue.com) of the data sources that you intend to use.

The deadline for expressions of interest is 31 March 2015.

Contributions will be selected with a view to including languages from a wide range of families and regions within Africa, and avoiding duplication. Selected contributors will then be sent further instructions; submission of manuscripts is expected in early July 2015.

Studies in African Linguistics is an online, open access, peer reviewed journal that seeks to publish African language data and analysis that might not find a place easily or suitably in more general journals. Journal URL: http://elanguage.net/journals/sal/index